At the risk of making myself sound ancient, I'd like to bring you back to a time in which citizens band radio was king. This technology seemed to many adults to come out of nowhere to command the national psyche. Truckers were creating convoys; moms were calling dads "good buddy" while they asked them to bring home a quart of milk over these two-way devices. And our collective desires for these new technology gadgets even drew us to the movie theater to watch Burt Reynolds court Sally Fields in between "10-4"s.

The connecting of America had begun. Little did we know that it would take two full decades for wireless communications to become the default communications method for many Americans -- and that many countries would use cell phone wireless technology as their only true national communications infrastructure.

A quarter century later, we can't go anyplace without our cell phones. Our children are tethered to us day and night -- while at school, at play or while we're out for the evening without them.

While I am convinced that many of my counterparts give their children cell phones at too early an age, I'm sometimes glad when my son can borrow a friend's cell phone to call home with an "I'll be late" message, or to ask for permission instead of taking it upon himself to simply not come home on time.

Last week for the first time, my 11-year-old daughter went to the mall with only her friend -- something my wife and I would not have condoned if we couldn't hand her a cell phone for the afternoon.

Despite the seemingly ubiquitous nature of the devices, we're only at the beginning of the cell phone revolution. They're becoming smarter, more useful (as more than just phones) and easier to carry. They also connect in more places than ever.

What used to be a market-by-market technology is now a national obsession. We decide which service to use, in many cases, based on who has better coverage, who allows us to roam more places for free and how much it costs for the extra phones with which to use our existing minutes.

Sure, as we add family members to our cell plans, we need to add more minutes to our basic plans, thereby increasing our monthly cost. We don't want to admit it at first. So we keep our cell plans low until our monthly usage goes over our allowance so many times that we feel compelled to increase the size of our base plan. Nobody wants to pay for minutes when we think we can get them for free.

These days, we even choose our plans based on which plans our friends and family are using because the largest cell phone companies are providing incentives for us to join in by offering us free cell phone-to-cell phone calls round the clock, but only if both ends of the conversation are on the same cellular provider's network.

In many ways it seems silly. But it works. We take the bait because we are pressured into it by our relatives across the country who want to call us for free from their cell phones. I don't blame them.

The bottom line is that even as our communications bills are rising yearly, our communications dollar is buying more -- more minutes, more distance, more connections, more territory and more time to use it.

Isn't technology wonderful, good buddy? Well, I gotta put the pedal to the metal and be outta here. This is David, going 10-7.